Shaping digitalisation in a gender-equitable way

Summary of the Expert Opinion of the Third Gender Equality Report of the Federal Government of Germany

This report is a summary of the Federal Government of Germany’s Expert Opinion on its most recent Gender Equality Report published in June 2021, which tackled the question: “How do we shape the development of the digital economy so that women and men have equal opportunities?”

The report identifies four levels of digital engagement:

• Digital industry – how digital technologies (i.e. goods and services such as computer hardware/ software and network infrastructure) are produced.
• Digital economy – the way technology is used, and new business models that would not exist without prior developments in the digital industry.
• Digitalised economy –  all economic activities where ICT is increasingly used, such as digital warehouse management or self-service checkouts in supermarkets.
• Digitalisation of society – the ways in which digital technologies increasingly affect all aspects of social life, such as remote working, home-schooling, social media etc.

It then looks at ways policy might be developed to ensure gender equality in each of these types of digital engagement. It notes that wherever digital transformation creates new barriers or challenges, gender equality policy must be applied to ensure equal capabilities and access.

The report highlights a few areas where particular care should be taken:

• The danger of implicit bias in algorithms and the need for social contexts to be applied when developing new technological applications, in order to avoid new applications discounting or even counteracting societal needs.
• Equal capabilities do not necessarily translate into a level playing field. Structural inequalities often run along gender lines (for example, female founders generally receive much lower levels of funding than men).
• Gender-equitable design means equality throughout the whole life cycle, not just with end users. Who decides, for example, which technologies should be used or funded? Who decides on the criteria for funding business ideas? Who decides which work processes need to be changed in a company?

The report concludes that every aspect of digitalisation needs to be analysed, evaluated and shaped through the gender lens. Access to, use and design of digital technologies and the decision-making processes behind it must be thoroughly examined from a gender perspective and assumptions should constantly be challenged. Adopting this approach will allow policymakers to help ensure digital gender equality.

The report notes that more data and research is required in several areas, particularly:

• Startups in the digital industry,
• gender relations in the gig economy,
• labour market, digitalisation and gender,
• algorithms and staff recruitment,
• gender-based digital violence,
• data and fundamental rights.

The Expert Panel has also published a number of fact sheets to accompany the report, dealing with key themes in greater detail. These will be of particular interest to policy makers:

• Fact Sheet 1: “Digitalisation and Gender Equality – How are digitalisation and gender equality connected?”
• Fact Sheet 2: “Technology Design: Gender-responsive and non-discriminatory technology design”
• Fact Sheet 3: “Digital Economy: Labour market – Digitalisation – Gender relations”
• Fact Sheet 4: “Remote Work: Opportunities and risks of remote work for the reconciliation of paid work and unpaid care work”
• Fact Sheet 5: “Algorithms and Discrimination: Digitalised discrimination”
• Fact Sheet 6: “Social Media: Gender stereotypes on social media”
• Fact Sheet 7: “Digital Industry: Gender equality-oriented working cultures and methods”
• Fact Sheet 8: “Business Formation / Startups: Female founders in the digital industry”
• Fact Sheet 9: “Education: Digitalisation-related competence”
• Fact Sheet 10: “Structures and Instruments: Strengthening gender equality policy structures and instruments”
• Fact Sheet 11: “Gender Equality in the Platform Economy”
• Fact Sheet 12: “Digital Violence: A new quality of gender-based violence”
• Fact Sheet 13: “Data and Basic Rights: Data collection and discrimination”